Stay
by stardust.breath
Summary: After fleeing her abusive ex-boyfriend, Amanda finds herself in the arms of an old friend. Ray/Amanda.


**This was a request from vampygurl402. I hope you like it, vampy! :)**

**I do take requests if anyone's interested, but it depends. I'm not really one to write M-rated fics even though I've tried in the past. But if anyone wants me to write something, let me know and I'll see what I can do :)**

**My English professor finally (finally!) stopped assigning me essays every week so guess what's going to get an update very soon? ;)**

**Yup. Years Later (Rewritten). And Notice Me (for those of you who like that fic).**

**There's a few curse words in here. Nothing major I guess.**

**I don't own Goosebumps.**

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><p>She couldn't stop running. She wasn't sure where she was going, but she knew she had to get away from <em>him<em>.

The cold night air slashed at her cheeks and lips with such ferocity that she knew her lips would be chapped later on and her cheeks would feel cold for a while.

The sound of her pounding heart and dead leaves crunching beneath her sneakers was the only music to keep her motivated.

_He went too far_, Amanda Benson thought. _No means no._

Finally, just when she felt like her lungs were on fire and she could run no more, she came to an ancient, decrepit town. She vaguely remembered this place, but from where?

Slowing to a power walk, Amanda quickly approached one of the looming houses and knocked on the door. She knew it was the middle of the night, but this was an emergency. If Nate caught her... Well, she didn't want to think about what would happen. He had already tried forcing her into full-on sex; she had a feeling he had no qualms about raping her and beating her. Hell, he'd already slapped her when she 'sassed' him in front of his friends.

She should have left Nate when he did that. It's only gotten worse since then.

Trying to catch her breath, Amanda leaned on one foot to try to relax. Surely whoever was in this house would understand her predicament. If not, she'd simply move on and find another place to seek refuge for the night. In the morning, she'd find a phone and call her parents.

She sighed at the thought of her parents. She'd completely pushed them away. Would they really help her now, after she'd left them at the tender age of seventeen to be with her so-called 'soul mate'?

After five minutes passed and there was no sign of movement in the house, Amanda turned around to leave. She didn't want to just walk in; what if someone was actually living there? If they weren't opening the door, maybe that was a sign to leave well enough alone.

Just as her foot reached the top step of the porch stairs, the door opened behind her.

"Hello?"

_That voice..._

Amanda turned around to address the person who greeted her when her blood chilled in her veins.

Short blonde hair, blue eyes, and porcelain skin greeted her. Memories of this place suddenly came rushing back to her: this was Dark Falls.

Everything rushed into her brain at once: the zombie kids, playing baseball, the creepy adults who tried to kill her parents, Compton Dawes, Petey...

_Ray._

"Amanda? Is that you?" he asked, surprised to see the brunette girl after five long years. Not only that, but why was she in a pair of night shorts and a tank top? "What are you doing here?"

"Ray..." she breathed. "I thought you were dead."

He chuckled. "You're half-right. I'm undead."

"Oh."

"What are you doing here?"

"I need a place to stay," Amanda explained, looking around. Where were the other residents?

"After you fought us tooth and nail? I don't know.."

"Ray, you guys were going to _eat_ us. That's not exactly a neighborly thing to do when new people move in next door."

The blonde narrowed his eyes slightly but said nothing in reply. Instead, he took in her form; she looked exhausted, sweaty -had she been running?-, and anxious.

The Amanda he remembered never looked this anxious. Well, at least not before the night the town was going to feed.

"I really hate to be a burden, but can I please come in? I'm freezing," Amanda said, rubbing her arms.

"Why should I help you after you and Josh shined your flashlight in my face and killed me?"

The sound of a car in the distance changed Amanda completely. She went from being slightly anxious to completely unhinged.

Grabbing Ray by the shoulders, Amanda cried, "Please, Ray, please! You have no idea what he'll do to me if he finds me! Please, I promise I'll leave first thing in the morning and I'll never bother you again; just let me stay the night, _please_!"

The frightened look in her brown eyes made him pause. Who was this 'he' that had her so afraid?

Wordlessly, Ray stepped aside and motioned for her to enter. She grabbed him and kissed him on the cheek, grateful to have a place to hide, and rushed into the old house. Dazed, Ray touched his cheek before following her.

After the door was shut and locked, Ray headed upstairs where he heard Amanda go. He found her in her -his- old room.

"I remember when my family and I moved in here," she said quietly. "This room freaked me out, but it was pretty cool."

Ray leaned against the doorframe. "What's going on, Amanda? Who's looking for you?"

"My boy- well, _ex_-boyfriend. We had a fight and I ran away from him."

"Can I ask what happened, or is that too personal?"

Ray was a piece of her childhood. A creepy, semi-terrifying part of her childhood, but a part of it nonetheless. After some of the things Nate had forced her to do... She felt like her childhood and her innocence had been ripped away. She felt like the dirtiest person on the planet.

"You don't want to know," she whispered. "Thank you for letting me stay tonight. I'll leave first thing tomorrow morning, don't worry."

Ray could feel waves of self-hatred and disgust rolling off the brown-haired girl. He could only guess what this ex-boyfriend had done to make the once confident girl so... humbled.

The whole house was quiet. A leaf tumbling over the cracked pavement outside could be heard even through the insulated walls.

"Do you want me to leave you alone?" he asked.

Amanda seemed to have forgotten that Ray was there because she jumped.

"What?"

"Do you want me to leave you alone?"

The girl looked him over before shaking her head.

"You can stay if you want. I don't mind."

Ray nodded and sat down in a corner of the room. He watched Amanda for a little while before tipping his hat down and closing his eyes.

After a few heartbeats passed, Amanda turned and looked at Ray. She couldn't help but smile softly; if there was anything she liked about Dark Falls, it was Ray Thurston.

Before all that bad stuff happened, Ray and Karen had been really cool to hang out with on those hazy summer days. Ray had always been a soft-spoken, quiet person and she liked that about him.

The smile fell from her face when his image was replaced with Nate's, the boy she met at the skate park last year. Everything had been going smoothly until the day Nate invited her over when his parents weren't over. At that point, they had been together for three months, and those three months were bliss for Amanda.

It was just a movie in his room... at first. But then he wanted to kiss, which turned into making out. And then he wanted to go a little further.

And then more than just 'a little'.

Amanda had been unsure, but she knew she liked Nate a lot and she didn't want to make him unhappy for any reason. Plus, he seemed like he expected her to do it. So she reluctantly went along with it.

And along with a chunk of her innocence went a chunk of her self-respect.

She started getting depressed to the point where she didn't want to get out of bed in the mornings, which led to heated arguments with her parents and even her brother, Josh.

The final straw was when Nate pressured her to move in with him and she agreed, an incredibly stupid move on her part. Not only did Nate expect her to touch him, but he also wanted complete control over her. If she needed to go to the store, he needed to know why and when and where, and then he proceeded to call her every five minutes while she was at said store. If she didn't pick up her phone, it was World War III when she returned.

Tonight, though... Tonight he wanted to go all the way. They had come close to full-blown sex many times, but there had been convenient reasons for her to give as to why they should wait. Tonight they had been alone; Nate got angry when she refused and tried to force himself on her. When she continued to refuse him, he started to throw things, screaming profanities at her. Only when he went into the bathroom did Amanda grab her clothes and bolt from the house.

She sniffled and, remembering a piece of her beloved childhood was sitting only a few feet away, covered her face with a hand to hide her sadness. _I should have never left home. I should have never let him touch me. I should have left him the first time he hit me._

Ray watched her curiously. Amanda, the strong girl who managed to fight off the town of Dark Falls with her brother, was _crying_?

He stood and approached her cautiously. Amanda didn't move; she continued staring out the window.

"Amanda? Are you okay?"

"Yeah."

"Are you sure? You look really upset and-"

That's when she burst into tears and flung herself at Ray.

He stumbled backwards a bit, but was able to catch her. She buried her face into his shirt, wetting the fabric with hot tears, and sobbed.

"I did so much and I can't take it back," she moaned. "I feel sick to my stomach, Ray. I'm a dirty person. I thought it would make him happy but it killed me inside to do those things. I'm disgusting, so _fucking_ disgusting!"

If nothing else, her words confirmed his suspicions about the ex-boyfriend she spoke of: the guy in question probably forced himself on her.

So Ray surprised himself by wrapping his arms around her and whispering 'it's okay' over and over into her hair.

They both ended up on the floor somehow and Amanda cried so much that she ended up falling asleep on him. Ray wanted to move her, but figured she needed the sleep; he could tell how exhausted she was.

And so that was how they spent the night: Amanda snuggled up to Ray and Ray propped against the wall, running his fingers through her tangled hair and wondering how he ended up with his childhood crush on his lap.

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><p>The next morning, Amanda awoke to feel her back aching. Upon sitting up straight, her muscles hurt even more.<p>

_I must've slept the wrong way._

Only when she felt Ray stir behind her did she remember where she was and why. She blushed; if there was one thing Amanda hated, it was crying in front of others.

Ray awoke only to see Amanda getting up.

"Hey."

The girl turned.

"Hm?"

"Where are you going?"

"I'm just heading to the bathroom. I'll be right back."

With that, she left the room. Ray could hear every step she took; the entire house creaked if you so much as twitched.

He wasn't sure how to approach her about last night. Whatever had happened between her and this other boy was obviously hurting her, yet Ray wasn't exactly a counselor. He wasn't sure how to talk to her about this kind of stuff.

It didn't help that he hadn't seen her for years. She'd grown up in that time; not that he hadn't, thanks to all the blood Dawes was able to get for the town, but things were different. Boys and girls didn't just go right into details about their sex lives after years of not talking.

When she re-entered the room, she looked a little better than before.

"Do you want me to leave now, or -?"

Ray shook his head. "No. Stay. You're welcome to stay."

"Okay."

She sat down next to him and pulled her knees up to her chest. "I'm sorry about last night. I've just been dealing with some, um, stuff lately and I think last night was my breaking point."

"It's fine. But... If you don't mind me asking, what happened?"

Amanda let out a long breath. She had a feeling he was going to ask this question sooner or later.

"My ex and I had a fight. He, uh... He wanted to do some stuff -"

"Sex?"

She blushed. "Y-yeah, he wanted to go all the way. I didn't want to and he didn't like that, so we started to argue and things got out of hand and... Well, I ran as soon as he left the room."

Amanda went to brush a strand of hair out of her face when Ray saw a blackish-purple bruise on her wrist.

"Oh my God.." he whispered, gently taking her wrist into his hand. "Did he.. Did he do this to you?"

She gave an awkward laugh. "Yeah, but it's cool. I'm away from him now and I'm not going back, so it's okay. It'll heal."

Anger began to boil beneath his pale skin. He hoped to someday meet this motherfucker, whoever he was; he'd make this ex-boyfriend of Amanda's pay dearly for hurting her.

"Ray?"

He hadn't realized it, but his calm blue eyes had turned red.

"I'm sorry," he said, forcing himself to calm down. "I'm just not happy with this person, whoever he was. He hurt you. That's not cool, Amanda."

"But I'm away from him," she pointed out. "And I meant it when I told him it was over."

"What if he comes after you? What if he corners you and does something that'll leave more than just a bruise?"

"Well, I've been meaning to invest in a pocket knife," Amanda joked. "Guess now I finally have a reason to get one."

Ray narrowed his eyes. "Amanda."

She sighed. "What do you want me to say?"

"Why don't you ask me for help? I could follow you and make sure this boy leaves you alone, and if you're caught off-guard, I'll be there to protect you."

"You'd do that for me?"

He blushed. Well, he blushed as much as a dead person can, anyway.

"Why not? I don't hate you and I certainly don't wish harm on you. Besides; this guy sounds like he needs to be taught a lesson about how to treat women."

"But what about your sensitivity to light?"

She was right. Where could he hide from the sun?

"Oh!" Amanda brightened. "You could stay in our tool shed. It doesn't have any windows and my dad hasn't used it for years. I could spruce it up for you and you could stay there."

Ray looked at her, really looked at her, and couldn't help but think he liked it better when she smiled.

Amanda was so pretty when she smiled. She was pretty no matter what, especially cute when ticked off, but he loved that bright smile of hers.

"Would you want to do that?"

He snapped out of his thoughts to nod.

"Sure. Sounds fine to me."

They left the house soon after, but before Amanda could step outside, Ray insisted on giving her his jacket. It was way too chilly outside to be wearing a tank top and shorts. If she wasn't wearing sneakers, he would have given her his shoes as well.

The sky was still dark, as it was still early in the morning, and that gave Ray and Amanda time to walk together and catch up a little bit.

She learned he was able to age a little bit and finally reach age nineteen. He told her stories of how he missed being alive, how he especially missed visiting New York City sometimes and getting to see the whole place lit up at night.

He learned that even though quite a bit had happened, Amanda was still in school and she was planning on going to a community college to start her life. She wasn't sure what to major in, but she wanted to at least give it a try.

By the time they made it to where she was currently living, the sun was beginning to rise. Ray was beginning to feel a slight headache from the small amount of light, but he forced himself not to show any signs of discomfort. They were almost there; a slight headache wouldn't kill him.

Amanda led him to her backyard, where they came to a nice-looking tool shed. It looked like one of those expensive play-houses that parents buy for their children.

She opened the side door and peeked inside, smiling when she saw that there were no tools. Her dad must have moved all his tools into the basement after she left; this would make things easier.

"Come and tell me what you think," Amanda said, motioning for him to take a look. Ray obliged and looked inside.

It wasn't that bad for a small tool shed. It looked like it would accommodate him for now.

"Looks fine to me," he replied. "But what about the windows? If any light gets in, I'll die. For real this time, too."

Amanda bit her lip. Her dad would probably get mad if she just boarded up the windows without telling him. "That's true. Okay... Would you want to stay in my room? With me? The basement is full of spiders and it's always really cold there. So I think it'd be more comfortable for you to stay in my room."

"Sure, if you're okay with that."

Her face lit up, even those chocolate-colored orbs lit up, and she grinned.

"Awesome! Come on, I'll give you the grand tour."

That morning, Amanda explained everything to her parents and they agreed to let her move back in; they never wanted her to leave in the first place.

She of course left out the part about Ray staying in her room, but she snuck him upstairs before her parents woke up.

And that was how Ray ended up staying in Amanda's house, in her room, for a few months unbeknownst to her parents.

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><p>For the next few months, Ray got to know Amanda so well that if a stranger looked in on them, he'd think they were best friends. They stayed up late on weekends just to whisper and laugh like little kids would during a sleepover. Since Amanda's parents allowed her to finish high school via online schooling, she didn't have to worry about Nate following her or having to deal with the rumors he most likely spread around the school.<p>

It was the best; Ray felt like he finally had someone he could talk to and Amanda felt like she had a true friend.

But one day, everything changed. Ray realized that Amanda was safe with her family and so he decided maybe it was best that he return to Dark Falls. He didn't want to; his tiny crush on Amanda had grown and he loved every second he spent with her.

That was why he had to leave. She was human, he was dead; she had so much left to do in her life, yet he was doomed to stay in Dark Falls and continue the unchanging, undead life that Dawes insisted was 'worth it'. This friendship that they had would someday fall away into nothingness. Amanda would meet new people and she would forget all about Ray; it would be best to leave her now before she started having feelings for him.

Not that she ever would. But he knew that sometimes friendship between a boy and a girl led to complicated feelings.

So after Amanda fell asleep around midnight, he pressed a kiss to her warm cheek (he seriously loved that about her; she was just so _warm_) and snuck downstairs. Just as he was about to open the front door and leave, a hand rested itself on his shoulder.

Ray startled and turned to see a sleepy Amanda staring at him.

"What are you doing, Ray?"

"I was... I was heading back to Dark Falls," he replied.

"Oh, did you forget something?"

"No."

She smiled. "Then come back upstairs! You don't have to go back there right this minute, do you?"

_She's not understanding._ "I do, actually."

"I'll come with you, then! It'll be fun."

Before she could head upstairs and change, Ray grabbed her wrist.

"No, Amanda, I mean... I'm _leaving_. I have to leave and return to Dark Falls for good. By myself."

The smile slowly fell from her face.

"What?"

_Oh boy... This isn't going to be easy._

"Did I do something wrong?" she asked, eyes wide and irresistible. "I'm sorry if I did, Ray."

"No, no, you didn't do anything wrong," he replied. "But... You have your whole life ahead of you, and you have your family. You don't need me anymore, Amanda."

"Okay, where is all this coming from?"

His sad blue eyes seemed to shine in the darkness around them.

"You're someone I consider my closest friend and I care about you a lot. But I also understand that you're alive and I'm dead. The fact is that you have your whole life ahead of you while I don't. You've got so much to experience, and I would only hold you back from that. So I'm leaving because I know you will be safe with your family and I want you to live your life without me holding you back."

She stared down at her feet, not speaking or showing any signs of what she was thinking or feeling. Ray wanted to say so much more to her, that she was beautiful and he loved her dearly and it hurt him to have to leave her, but that would only make this much more difficult.

He turned to open the door when Amanda mumbled something behind him.

Ray looked at her. "What?"

"I said I still need you," she replied. Her voice cracked; she was going to cry.

He took her hands in his. "But you don't. You'll meet new people, people who can take you out and make you laugh and make you happy. I can't do much for you, Amanda. I'm doomed to stay in the shadows until the sun finally catches me out in the open."

"Ray, you don't get it!" she hissed. "I still need you! _I don't care_ if you can't take me out anywhere; I want you to stay in my life because you're important to me! You make me happy!"

"But -"

"I _love_ you."

Holy shit. She didn't just say that.

"W-what?!"

"I said I love you." Amanda wrapped him in a hug and pressed her face against his shirt. "You're my best friend and you're the only person who really understands me. You were there for me when I needed someone the most and I've always liked you since I met you. Not like-like, of course, but if there was anything I liked about Dark Falls, it was _you_. So you can't leave, because if you do, I don't know what I'll do. I don't want anyone else; I just want you, Ray. I've grown to love you so much... So _please_ don't leave me."

He couldn't help but hug her back. He had been thinking these things all along: he liked her ever since he caught sight of her pretty face, his feelings had only grown stronger since that night she showed up on his doorstep freezing and afraid, and he couldn't imagine not being around her anymore.

"But what if one day you meet another guy who can do everything I can't?" he asked. "What if one day you get tired of boarding up the windows and keeping the lights off?"

"I don't want another guy. I want you. You're the only person I can talk to for hours on end without getting bored or running out of things to say. Whenever we're together, I feel so happy and I feel like myself again. I feel like I don't have to put up a front around you; you're my best friend. And if you left me... If you left, it would hurt more than anything. So please don't go. If this means staying in the dark for the rest of my life, then so be it. As long as I'm with you, I'll be okay."

He couldn't just say no to her after all this. "Is this really what you want?"

"More than anything. We'll figure everything out later; just stay with me and -"

She never got to finish her sentence. Because at that moment, Ray decided enough was enough and finally pressed his lips to hers.

And from then on, they both knew that no matter what, everything would be okay. As long as they were together, they could face any obstacle.

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><p><strong>Hope this suffices for now! ;)<strong>


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